Originally Posted by
CollegeFlyer
Probably just not worth the time to do the conversion for $3.29 gift cards and the like. I doubt that the minimum is to protect the gift card industry, because I don't know why UA would care about protecting the gift card industry. (If UA really cared about "the industry" and wanted to ensure breakage, they would not offer this program at all.)
It looks like the $25 minimum is set by Plastic Jungle, UA's partner that accepts the gift cards for exchange, not by UA.
As far as taking time or resources to convert $3.29 gift cards (which I have a number of myself, LOL), since the process is entirely automated, what difference should it make whether there is $25 or $2.50 on the card? I can understand them not awarding fractional miles, but they could easily round down to the next integer.
I didn't really mean protect the gift card industry per se, but more along the lines of keeping unused balances in the hands of the gift card issuers. My guess would be that the gift card issuers are paying United a fee for this "service".. or do you guys think it's the other way around? Someone is making money off this somewhere, otherwise it wouldn't be happening in the first place.